


Fever Dream

by imaginary_golux



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Force-Sensitive Finn, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 06:12:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7348336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe and Rey are waiting for Finn to wake up, and every instinct Poe has is telling him to feed the too-lean Jedi girl. Maybe that's not much to build a relationship on, but it's a start. And then one of Poe's missions goes drastically wrong...</p><p>At least he's not on Jakku.</p><p>Beta by my Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_She’s so small_ , is Poe’s first thought when he meets the Jedi girl Finn had nearly died to save. She’s not _that_ much shorter than Poe is - a few inches, perhaps - but she’s lean in a way that rings warning bells in Poe’s mind, muscle and bone and not a single bit of fat, worn away to nothing but the absolute essentials.

And then she turns a little, and he sees her eyes, and _oh_. Eyes like fire, warm and fierce and terrifying. She’s seen so many things, this lean tough desert girl, and none of them have broken her. She is a warrior, honed all her life for war, used to fighting everything for one more sip of water, one more moment to survive. She is tough as durasteel and dangerous as the lightsaber at her belt.

And she is hurting, that’s plain to see: she watches the doctors bustle around Finn’s prone form and yearns towards him with every fiber of her being, yet does not move from where she stands pressed to the observation window. Poe wants, desperately, to go down and take Finn’s unresponding hand in his, to wake him with a kiss like a fairy-tale hero, but Doctor Kalonia would quite rightly have him thrown in the brig if he tried, and Finn won’t know, one way or the other, whether Poe is there beside him until he wakes. But this girl is awake, and hurting, and maybe Poe can help.

“Hey,” he says softly, and she turns her head to look at him - not startled, she’s known he was there since he entered the corridor, that’s clear enough in her stance, in the wary desert-bred way she watches _everything_ even as she stares desperately down at Finn’s still form - and looks Poe up and down. Poe holds out empty hands, tries a smile.

“I’m Poe Dameron,” he says. “You must be Rey.”

She nods, cocks her head and examines him again more closely. “Finn thought you were dead,” she says. Poe essays a grin.

“Yeah, well, for a bit there _I_ thought I was dead,” he offers. “Sheer good luck I’m not.” He nods towards the observation window, the flurry of doctors and medical droids around the bed. “Doc Kalonia said they’d be a while yet. Would you like me to show you the mess hall while we wait?”

Rey sways, clearly tempted, glances back at the window. “I...what if something goes wrong?” she asks finally. “I can’t leave him.”

“Fair,” Poe says. “Tell you what, two options. One, I can leave BB-8 here with instructions to come get us if we’re needed.” The little droid beeps happily, spins a little, and Rey flashes the hint of a smile down at it, the first Poe’s seen. A tiny victory. “Two, you can tell me what you like to eat and I can go grab you some food and bring it here. Your choice.”

Rey thinks about that for a moment, glancing in the window again, then says, “Bring some here? Please? Anything. I eat anything.”

“Sure thing,” Poe says easily. “Hey, BB, want to stay here and keep her company for a few minutes?”

BB-8 goes whirring over to nudge against Rey’s legs, and she puts a hand down to pat the little droid’s head, gives Poe an honest-to-goodness smile. It’s small and shaky, but it’s real. Poe feels about ten feet tall. “Be right back,” he says, and goes jogging off towards the mess.

He grabs a handful of things that can be eaten quickly and tidily - stuffed bread rolls both sweet and savory, a bowl of assorted fruit, two tall lidded mugs of ice water - and bears his trophies back to the medbay corridor triumphantly, detouring very briefly to grab a little folding table out of his room. Rey is pressed to the window again when he returns, one hand flat on the glass, the other on BB-8’s head. Poe sets the table up, gives her the lion’s share of the food. He’s not terribly hungry, and the little voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like his grandfather is chanting, _Feed the poor thing already!_

Rey pulls herself away from the window and looks at the table, blinks in confusion. “What... _are_ those?” she asks, sounding intrigued almost despite herself.

“Bread rolls - these have meat, those have jam - blumfruit, cherries, and sweet-apples,” Poe says. “Help yourself.”

She eyes him dubiously, like she thinks he might be lying, might be planning to eat everything himself, then snatches a bread roll off the table and stuffs half of it into her mouth, chewing almost viciously. Poe looks away, thinking vaguely that watching her eat might distress her, takes a sweet roll and nibbles at it while he watches Doctor Kalonia finish wrapping bandages around the entirety of Finn’s torso ( _Kriffing hell,_ Poe thinks, _I am going to have nightmares about this_ ) and the droids finish cleaning up the detritus of the desperate scramble to save Finn’s life.

Rey says, sounding very surprised, “This is _good_.” Poe glances over to see her regarding the other half of her bread roll in something very like astonishment. She takes another, much smaller bite, chews it slowly enough to actually taste it. “How do they get the meat inside the bread?”

“They roll it up in the dough before they bake it,” Poe explains, oddly charmed by the question.

“...Bake it?” Rey asks. “It’s not from powder?”

Poe winces. His grandfather’s voice bellows, _Feed her!_ “Not really,” he says carefully. “You start with flour and yeast, which are sort of powders, but...um. I could show you, if you liked.”

“You can make these?” she asks, and Poe hasn’t had someone look at him that _worshipfully_ in - ever. Certainly not because of _bread rolls_.

“Yeah,” he says. “Baking’s not hard. Just a matter of getting the measurements right. Now cooking, there’s a good way to make some _spectacular_ messes.”

She looks intrigued, now, has turned almost all the way away from the window and is eating her second bread roll in quick, tiny bites, eyes fixed on him. Poe keeps half an eye on Finn, sleeping peacefully now, the monitors beeping his heartbeat in a steady, comforting rhythm, and regales Rey with the story of his first attempt to make his grandfather’s famous spicy stew, which had turned out far too hot and far too salty and just generally inedible. Rey giggles when Poe pulls a particularly disappointed face, and Poe can’t help cheering internally. A laugh is an _enormous_ victory.

They’ve eaten everything he brought by the time Doctor Kalonia comes out and smiles at them. “He’s going to be alright,” she says. “You can come in and see him, if you like.”

Rey is in the room almost before the doctor finishes speaking; Poe pauses long enough to thank Kalonia before hurrying in after her. Rey is already curled up in a chair that she’s pushed up next to the bed, both her hands wrapped around one of Finn’s. Poe sits down on Finn’s other side, takes his other hand and takes immense comfort in its warmth, in the pulse of Finn’s steady heartbeat.

“He said you saved his life,” Rey says after a while. Poe startles a little - he’d nearly dozed off, watching the steady rise and fall of Finn’s chest.

“He saved _mine_ ,” he says, smiling a little wryly at her. “Honestly I think he would have figured something out even if I wasn’t there. But there wasn’t going to be anyone coming for me, and then there he was. Thought I was hallucinating him, for a while.”

Rey nods. “He came back for me,” she says at last. “He was going to leave - Force, he was so scared of the First Order he was _shaking_ with it - and he still came back for me.” She gives Poe a long, evaluating look. “You understand,” she says at last. “We owe him.”

“Yes,” Poe agrees, and the smile she gives him is small and sweet and _true_ , like a tiny piece of sunshine in the dimly-lit room. Poe thinks, later, that this is the moment that he truly wins her friendship, the moment that she knows he’s safe to trust.

*

Doctor Kalonia comes by to chase them out a few hours later, which is really all to the good, because Poe is a couple of inches away from just falling asleep where he sits, and Rey is swaying with exhaustion, yanking herself upright again with an expression of pure fury at her own weakness.

“I’ll find you a spare bed,” Poe tells her, and does: the room next to his, which has been empty for a month now, the pilot who used to have it gone to xer gods (another one Poe couldn’t shield, couldn’t save, but all the gods must know he tries, he tries so _hard_ ). “I’m right next door,” he says as she stands in the doorway. “Come get me if you need anything. And - BB, buddy. Want to bunk with Rey tonight?”

BB-8 burbles happily, and Rey gives Poe a tired smile. “I see why Finn likes you,” she says, and steps into the room, BB-8 on her heels, closes the door carefully behind herself. Poe hears the lock click and nods approvingly to himself before he staggers the ten steps to his own door, stumbles in and manages to kick his boots off and wriggle out of his flight suit, leaving it in an untidy heap on the floor, before he faceplants on the bed and is pretty much instantly asleep.

He wakes to a soft knock on his door, glances at the clock as he stumbles out of bed and is gratified to find he’s gotten a good nine hours of sleep - bless Jess and Snap, who must have passed the word not to disturb him.

The knocking turns out to be Rey, who looks reasonably well rested, which is good. She says, a little hesitantly, “I didn’t know where the mess hall was, or -”

“Give me ten minutes to get changed,” Poe says instantly, “and we’ll go grab breakfast and check on Finn.”

Rey nods sharply, and Poe hustles through his morning routine, glances at himself in the mirror as he rakes his comb through his hair and can’t help grinning. He’s alive, and Rey’s alive, and Finn’s alive, and Starkiller is destroyed - and okay, as soon as Poe has a few minutes to think about all the people he’s lost, he’s going to be a kriffing wreck, but here and now, he is alive, and that is victory enough.

In the mess hall, Rey collects an entire plate full of fruit and then Poe gets to introduce her to the concept of omelettes, which she finds astonishing and delightful. Poe leads her over to the table the other pilots have staked out, and sits beside her drinking his caf while Jess and Snap and Bastian pepper Rey with questions about flying the _Millennium Falcon_ \- they all give Poe shit for his hero-worship of the General and her infamous husband, but every pilot in the Republic _or_ the Resistance would give their left hand for a chance to fly the famous ship. Rey is dubious about the other pilots at first, but whenever she glances over at Poe he gives her an encouraging nod, and so between bites of omelette and fruit she describes the modifications which have been made to the _Falcon_ , and the maintenance she plans to perform on it. No one asks about Han. If they start mourning their dead _now_ , it’ll break them, and there are things that need doing. Time enough for that later, if they’re all still alive.

“Snap,” Poe says as he and Rey rise, her plate so clean it looks polished. “We’re going to need a new base.” Snap nods. He’s the best of them all at finding good spots - he found D’Qar, months ago - and this location is well and truly compromised.

“I’ll go up today,” Snap promises, and Poe claps him on the shoulder and leads Rey to the bin for dirty dishes, and then out through the corridors to the medbay. The droid on duty beeps resignedly at them and lets them into Finn’s room, and Poe can feel himself relax at the sight of Finn’s steady breathing, the peaceful expression on his sleeping face. Rey sighs and loses some of the tension in her shoulders.

“When will he wake up?” she asks.

“No idea,” Poe tells her, and they sit down again, one on either side of their sleeping friend. Poe manages to stay quiet for a good ten minutes - a personal record, given that he is neither drunk, exhausted, nor drugged - and then says, idly, “So you’re from Jakku?”

“I was left there,” Rey says bluntly, and Poe winces. Okay, sore spot. He casts around for some other thing to talk about.

“You built BB-8,” Rey says, saving him from making another conversational blunder. Poe grins at her. He can talk about BB-8 for _hours_. So he does. He talks himself hoarse, in fact, while Finn sleeps on between them and Rey watches the whole room with wary eyes.

Doctor Kalonia kicks them out again in the middle of the afternoon, and Poe begs them some food from the kitchen droids and tries to figure out what to do next - and then they are both summoned to the control room, and R2-D2 wakes, and there hovering in the air above them is the map to Luke Skywalker that Poe risked so much to win. Poe stares at it wide-eyed and astonished, and Rey’s fingers clench around his arm hard enough that he’s going to have bruises to mark this moment.

“Rey,” General Leia says, kindly, once the celebration has died down a little, “you must go. His lightsaber came to you.”

Rey hesitates, fingers still wrapped around Poe’s forearm, and Poe says, softly so that no one else can hear, “I’ll keep Finn safe. When you get back, he’ll be waiting for you.”

“Alright,” Rey says to the General, nodding sharply. “I’ll go.”

She visits Finn again before she leaves, kisses his forehead and promises to return, while Poe lurks in the doorway feeling vaguely out of place. But then she turns to Poe, and looks him solemnly in the eyes, and says, “You’ll be waiting, too, when I get back?”

“Yes,” Poe promises, and it feels like a binding vow, settles over his shoulders with actual _weight_ to it. Yes, he’ll wait for this girl with the fierce eyes and the Force shining around her like sunlight, this woman who does not need his protection but who will let him feed her and comfort her and stand beside her. He’d wait until the heat-death of the universe, if he needed to.

He doesn’t think she’ll take that long.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s dangerous to comm directly between the Resistance and distant Ahch-To, where Luke Skywalker has gone to ground - no one wants the First Order to trace their communications, after all. So Poe can’t talk to Rey after she leaves. He wants to, more than once, wants to spend a little more time with the only other person who really understands how _precious_ Finn is. He finds himself talking to BB-8, instead - the little droid warbles agreement, having apparently decided that Finn is its third-favorite flesh-and-bone person in the galaxy (the first and second being Poe himself and Rey) - and also talking to Finn’s prone form, in the hours he can steal from his duties. But those hours are few and far between, unfortunately. The base _does_ have to move, and when Snap gets back from his reconnaissance run, ten days later, he’s got their next options all lined up. Poe, as head of what remains of the fighter squadrons, is responsible for seeing to the protection of the transports as they make their winding, indirect way between the stars to the new base, and he is run half-ragged trying to fill too many positions with not enough pilots. He himself never stays overnight on the new base, though. None of his pilots begrudge him that; they know he owes Finn, and they tease him gently about the hours he spends in the medbay without any heat in their words.

Finn goes out on the second-to-last transport, along with the half-dozen other people injured badly enough to be confined to medbay for the duration. Poe flies escort, and his heart is in his mouth the whole way, because if the First Order _does_ find this transport, well, Poe will die before he sees it destroyed, and if he dies he’ll break his word to Rey, so there’s really no good option there at all. But they make it to the new base safely - it’s a moon so isolated that it doesn’t even have a name, which has been dubbed Hideaway - and Poe tags along while Doctor Kalonia gets Finn settled in a private room in the new medbay, the monitors beeping away comfortingly.

“He’ll be fine,” Kalonia tells Poe, patting his shoulder. “He’s healing steadily. Honestly, his back is very nearly as good as new; at this point, it appears that he is dealing with the aftermath of the supplements and suppressants that the First Order uses on its Stormtroopers, rather than the trauma of his wound. Don’t fret yourself ill, Poe. You’re an _awful_ patient and I don’t want to have to stick _you_ in a medical bed.”

Poe can only grin sheepishly. He _is_ an awful patient, always has been. He hates feeling helpless, feeling like his body is rebelling against him. It makes him grouchy and snappish, and he’s always embarrassed once he recovers, because he’s an absolute _bear_ when he’s ill.

“I’ll be good,” he promises. “Better once he wakes up, though. And once Rey gets back.”

Doctor Kalonia smiles. “Patience,” she counsels him. “And keep talking to him. You never know what he’ll actually hear.”

So Poe does. It’s not as though telling stories to his unconscious savior is a hardship, after all.

*

Rey comes back before Finn wakes up, bounding down the ramp of the _Millennium Falcon_ and striding hotfoot across the tarmac to where Poe stands waiting. Behind her, a bearded man hesitates in the doorway, looking down at Leia with her stern face and queenly eyes. Poe knows him - has met him before, when he was very young and Luke Skywalker visited his parents and the Force-sensitive tree in their backyard - but he does not have time, right now, for the legendary last Jedi, not when Rey shines so much brighter in his eyes.

“I’ve missed you,” he tells her, quite honestly, when she pauses in front of him. She reaches out to clasp his arm, brief and yet full of affection, and offers him a quirked half-smile.

“And I you,” she says. “Is Finn awake?”

“Not yet, but he is healing,” Poe assures her. “Doc thinks he’ll wake any day now. Maybe he was waiting for you.”

Rey’s smile gets a fraction wider. “Thank you,” she says softly, and then Luke Skywalker steps off the ramp into his sister’s arms and the commotion becomes too loud for them to hear each other at all, and Poe just does his best to stay near Rey’s shoulder as the crowd presses in around them, to shield her a little from the hordes of people who want to congratulate her, and waits impatiently for the moment when the two of them can slip away to see their sleeping friend.

It takes far too long, but eventually there’s a gap in the crowd, and Poe and Rey slide through it and trot through the base, Rey on Poe’s heels, to the medbay. Doctor Kalonia shakes her head at them, but she lets them into Finn’s private room, and Rey slumps down in the chair beside the bed and takes Finn’s hand in hers, staring at his still face as though memorizing it. Poe stands behind her, a hand on the back of her chair, and watches Finn’s chest rise and fall, steady as a metronome.

At last Rey heaves a deep sigh and twists around, not letting go of Finn’s hand, to look up at Poe. “He’s healing,” she says. “I can feel it.”

Poe relaxes a little. It’s one thing to hear that from Doctor Kalonia, and another entirely to hear it from Rey, who could, so far as Poe knows, literally pull Finn back from death with the Force if she wanted to. Possibly she’d _invent_ a way to do so.

“Good,” he says quietly. There’s a long moment of peaceful silence, and then he says, “Now that you’re back, I’m on the mission roster again. The General let me stay near him while you were gone, but -”

“You have a job to do,” Rey says, nodding her understanding. “I’ll watch him while you’re gone.” She turns around and wraps one hand around Poe’s wrist, a little too tight, and gives him a very serious look. “But you have to promise me, Poe Dameron, that you’ll come back.”

“I swear it,” Poe tells her, and means that oath with every atom of his being.

*

He’s sent out two days later, on a long reconnaissance mission which _ought_ , honestly, to be a complete milk run. It’s just to get him back into the swing of things, he knows, and he’d object except that he _has_ been obsessing over Finn to the point of ignoring some of his duties. But because it’s a milk run, he leaves BB-8 with Rey, to keep her company in the horde of strangers on Hideaway and to watch over Finn while she is training with Luke Skywalker.

This turns out to be something of a bad choice, because Poe is a week into his three-week run when he hops into a new system and runs slap-bang into an entire squadron of TIE fighters running a live-fire exercise, and while Poe _is_ , in fact, as good a pilot as he thinks he is, that’s still one hell of a hairy situation.

He makes it out. He _does_ , he manages to outmaneuver every single one of the bastards and punch his poor overworked transport back into hyperspace, but not without damage. He’s honestly more worried about the bolt that hit the engine compartment than the one which sent shrapnel whirring through the cockpit - okay, yes, his leg is bleeding, but _does the hyperdrive work_ \- and his priorities are borne out when the hyperdrive shivers, glitches, and drops the ship out into a system which is distinctly not the one Poe was aiming for. He punches a command for the ship’s limited processors to try to match the starscape to a known system and then turns all his concentration to trying to land the poor battered thing before the engines give out entirely.

He manages it, though it’s a near thing, slaps a bacta patch on his leg and goes limping back to see how bad the damage is. It’s...not pretty. And one of the things that isn’t working properly is the interstellar comm, of course, even if he _did_ dare send a message which might be intercepted by the First Order.

But it’s _fixably_ bad, so Poe grits his teeth against the pain in his leg and digs out the repair kit and sets to work. He’s a pretty good mechanic - you have to be, in the Resistance, half their ships are held together with string and hope - and he’s reasonably sure he can get the engines together enough to get him back to Hideaway, at any rate, even if they’ll need a lot of attention after that from people with more mechanical chops than he has.

He works till it’s too dark to see, eats a handful of protein bars and falls over into his bunk, gets up as soon as there’s light and sets to work again. It’s only after about three days of that that he realizes his leg isn’t healing as well as it should be. The gash is puffy and the color is...not good. Shit. Shit shit shit _kriffing hell_. Poe is _not_ a medic; his grasp of medicine is limited to painkillers and bacta patches. He’s honestly not sure what to do about what looks to be a nasty infection.

But he’s going to figure it out, because he made a _promise_. He said he’d get home to Rey and Finn, and by all the gods he’ll keep that oath or die trying.

He searches the med kit, takes the pills that look most useful, slaps more bacta on the gash and sets to work on the engine with renewed fervor, because if he can get this working, can get himself home, Doctor Kalonia can patch him up as easy as anything, and he’ll be fine.

That night he wakes up shaking with cold, throws the blankets off and makes it to the tiny refresher before he retches. Ah. _Fever_ , he thinks, looking at his flushed face in the mirror as he rinses his mouth. _This is bad_. His leg is hurting worse, and he doesn’t quite dare unwrap it and find out what it looks like. He can patch droids and engines, not people.

When he turns around, BB-8 is in the doorway, beeping concern. Poe sighs. Great. Hallucinations. BB-8 is safe at Hideaway, he _knows_ that, so the little droid in front of him can’t be real. He walks right through the hallucination, collapses on his bunk again, drinks most of a bottle of water in some vague theory that hydration will help. In the morning, he drags himself back to the engine. He can still see, his hands still work. He can fix this.

He’ll get home.

*

He’s turning to pick up another tool when he sees them, Finn and Rey with their arms around each other, staring at him with worry and dismay clear on their faces. He waves. They’re probably another hallucination, but it’s nice to have company. “Hey, guys,” he says.

“Poe,” says Finn, and oh, Poe had thought he’d almost forgotten how nice Finn’s voice is. It’s really a lovely voice. If he has to be hallucinating, has to be sick enough that dying is unfortunately a real possibility, it’s very nice for his mind to have provided him with such _lovely_ hallucinations. “Poe, where are you?”

“In the engine room, what’s it look like, buddy?” Poe asks, grinning.

“No, I mean, what _planet_?” Finn asks, moving closer almost warily. Poe feasts his eyes on Finn _walking_ , upright and hale and well.

“Dunno, buddy,” he says, shrugging. “Fell outta hyperspace. I _think_ I’m near Teyr, somewhere. Maybe. But hey, I’ll get this fixed soon, be back with you in two shakes, buddy. Don’t you fret.”

“Poe, you’re _swaying_ ,” Rey says, frowning, and then they both vanish. Poe sighs. Oh well.

They reappear that evening, as he makes his slow way towards his bunk, and both of them reach for him like they’re hoping to catch him before he inevitably falls. “Don’t worry, buddies,” Poe says, bracing himself on the wall. “I got this.”

“Poe, you really don’t,” Rey says, frowning.

“Well,” Poe says, sighing, “okay, I kind of don’t. But. I’ll make it home to you, I promise. I said I would, and I will.” He sways again, and stumbles forward, and the hallucinations get out of his way.

They’re there when he wakes up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, though, which is nice. Poe blinks blearily up at them. “Hey,” he says. The room is spinning around him, and that...that can’t be a good sign. “Hey,” he says again, softly. “If I don’t make it back, sweethearts, don’t you cry too much. I knew this was gonna kill me one of these days. I’m sorry to break my promise, though.”

“Kriffing hell, Poe, don’t talk like that,” Finn says, leaning over him anxiously. “You’ll be alright.”

Poe laughs a little. “Yeah, buddy,” he says. “I’ll do my best. But you got each other, you’ll be alright.” His eyes drift closed again, and he’s a little sad that he can’t see his hallucinations anymore. They’re almost as lovely as the real thing. “Woulda liked to spend my life with you,” he mutters to the darkness behind his closed eyelids. “Woulda loved you so. ‘M so damn sorry.”

The world goes away.

*

He dreams that he hears people coming into his battered ship, that there are voices and footsteps, that Rey and Finn are leaning over him again, holding him steady while someone does something really unpleasant to his injured leg, looking down at him with wide and worried eyes and begging him to hold on, hold on just a little longer, just for them. He knows it’s a hallucination, that the fact that he can actually _feel_ them probably means he’s on the very edge of death, so far gone that his brain can’t separate dreams from reality anymore, but it’s so nice, so very nice to slip away with Finn’s hands warm on his shoulders and Rey’s fingers threaded through his hair, with their lovely faces as the last thing he’s going to see. He tries to smile at them, isn’t sure he manages it at all, and then the pain comes in and takes him into red-lit darkness, and he clings to the memory of their smiles as he falls.


	3. Chapter 3

Poe wakes up in the medbay. He stares at the ceiling for a while, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he’s not dead, listening to the steady beeping of the monitors and taking stock of his various aches and pains. His leg hurts a little, but it’s a healing sort of hurt, like a strained muscle, not the dreadful burning he’d almost gotten used to. His head hurts a little, too, but nothing bad enough to even keep him out of the air, if he needed to fly.

And when he turns his head, BB-8 is sitting beside the bed. Poe flails a hand out from under the sheets, rests it atop BB-8’s dome, and BB-8 burbles joy and relief and spins in circles under Poe’s hand. Poe can’t help laughing in relief.

Doctor Kalonia comes bustling in after a few moments, checks him over with brisk efficiency, hands him a painkiller and a glass of water and helps him sit up to take them. “You need to stop cutting it that close, Dameron,” she admonishes him. “Another few hours and I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”

“How _did_ I get back?” Poe asks her, baffled. “Last thing I remember, I was passed out in my bunk on the ship. I _know_ I didn’t get the engine fixed, and I wasn’t in any shape to fly.”

“Not that that would have stopped you from trying,” Kalonia observes, and Poe grins sheepishly. “Your young friends brought you back - Rey and Finn,” she adds. “Took the _Falcon_ out to find you.”

“Finn’s awake?” Poe asks, latching on to the most important part of that statement. “That’s _wonderful_!”

Doctor Kalonia sighs. “You’re a menace, Dameron,” she says wearily. “And your priorities could use some work. But yes, Finn woke up a few days after you left, and he and Rey have been training with Skywalker. They’re waiting for you, I expect.”

“Am I cleared to go, then?” Poe asks, grinning at her.

“Get on with you,” she says, swatting at his shoulder and missing by several inches. “If that leg starts giving you any trouble, you come right back here, though, or else.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Poe says cheekily, hopping off the bed and kissing her cheek. “I’ll be good.”

“I already told those two bright-eyed ducklings of yours to bring you here if anything looks off,” she tells him, grinning. “Just in case you forget.”

Poe can’t help laughing as he trots out of the medbay, BB-8 at his heels, because okay, that’s fair. But he wants to see Finn, wants to see him _awake_ , and everything else takes second priority to that.

*

He realizes about three steps out of the medbay that he doesn’t actually know where Rey and Finn _are_ , and decides to swing by his room for a change of clothing before he goes hunting for them. Which turns out to be a good choice, because Rey and Finn are in his room. Finn is sitting on Poe’s bunk holding a holomanual of some sort in one hand, his other arm curled around Rey’s back; Rey is snuggled up against his chest, curled into an impossibly tight ball, fast asleep.

Poe pauses in the doorway and just _looks_ at them for a while, drinks in the sight of them safe and hale and well. BB-8 burbles very quietly and goes spinning off down the corridor, giving Poe some privacy for whatever happens next. Finn puts down his holomanual and looks back at Poe, a wide smile on his lovely face. Rey doesn’t wake, which Poe takes as an _incredible_ compliment. She never sleeps around other people by preference, and the few times he walked into Finn’s room in the medbay to find Rey sleeping, she was bolt upright with her quarterstaff in her hands as soon as he crossed the lintel. But today she just snuffles softly against Finn’s chest without waking. Poe steps into the room as quietly as he can, winces a little as the door hisses shut behind him, and then hesitates, not sure what to do. Given his druthers, he’d sit down next to Finn, curl himself around Rey and rest his head on Finn’s shoulder and just bask in their warmth, but he’s pretty sure he’s not actually welcome in their cozy huddle. He’s their friend, certainly, but there’s friendship and there’s the perfect trust in every line of their bodies. Rey will take food from his hands, which is an immense compliment, but she’s never offered to fall asleep on him. Mind, he never gave her the chance. It always seemed a little too forward, and while Poe would certainly _like_ to have a romantic relationship with her - with both of these beautiful young people, gods know he’d give his off hand for the chance to kiss Finn even _once_ \- he values her friendship far too highly to risk it by making an unwanted pass.

“Come here,” Finn says, a soft rumble of sound that makes Rey sigh and blink herself awake, then turn to see Poe and squeak with joy, uncoiling from Finn’s embrace and launching herself across the room so abruptly that Poe only barely has time to put his arms out, catches her clumsily and staggers back against the wall under her weight. Finn laughs quietly.

Rey is a warm and pleasant armful, and Poe nuzzles his face into her hair as she winds her arms around his neck, clings to her as tightly as she is holding him. “Hey,” he says, loud enough for both of them to hear. “Thanks for coming for me.”

“Idiot,” says Rey, muffled by his shirt. “Of course we came.”

“Gotta ask, though, how’d you find me?” Poe wonders. Finn makes a soft, confused sound.

“You told us,” he says. “Well, you were a little vague, but you gave us the general area we needed to search.”

Poe raises his head to blink at Finn. “I never did,” he objects. “You were unconscious when I left, and I didn’t comm anyone after I crashed.”

Rey pulls away far enough to look up and meet Poe’s eyes. “Wait, didn’t you _see_ us?”

Poe stares at her for a long moment. “I hallucinated you,” he says at last.

“No,” she says solemnly. “We were there. We dreamed together, in the Force, and it brought us to you.”

Poe blinks, blinks again. They were _there_. They saw him, talked to him -

Oh kriff, _what did he say_.

“...I was very sick,” he says carefully. “I hope I didn’t say anything to offend you.”

Finn rolls off the bed, graceful and beautiful as the weapon he was trained to be, moves to wraps his arms around both of them so that Rey is sandwiched between him and Poe. “You didn’t offend us,” he says. “Worried the hell out of us, yes, but you didn’t offend us.”

Poe relaxes a little. Maybe he didn’t say anything _too_ revealing, then. This faint hope is dashed immediately.

“You said you wanted to spend your life with us,” Rey says quietly. “Was that true?”

Poe gulps. He thinks about lying, claiming the fever had made him babble untruths, but his grandfather’s voice snaps, _Tell them, boyo,_ in the back of his mind, and he knows that lying to them won’t end well in the long run. So, “Yeah,” he tells her. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“You said you would have loved us,” Finn puts in softly. Poe dares to look up and meet Finn’s eyes, sees nothing but warm affection.

“Yeah,” Poe says again. “I would. I _do_.”

“Good,” says Rey happily, and nestles trustingly against Poe, her head tucked into the curve of his neck, and he can’t help but wind his arms around her, can’t help smiling besottedly, and then Finn leans forward over Rey’s head and presses his lips very gently to Poe’s, and oh.

Poe thinks this might actually be a perfect moment.

*

They end up in the bed eventually, because Poe starts to sway a little as his weak leg starts to ache, and Rey and Finn pull back immediately and herd him over to the bed, push him down and curl up around him as if to make sure he won’t escape. Poe doesn’t _intend_ to escape, but it’s true that if they let go of him he might be tempted to go find a corner and hyperventilate for a while. This is a little overwhelming for having just almost _died_. Not that Poe doesn’t almost-die on an unfortunately regular basis, but that’s in his X-Wing, and the adrenaline is kind of addictive. Almost-dying from an infected leg wound is much less fun.

“I was going to court you,” he says after a while. “Do it properly. Bring you flowers and sweets, make you my grandfather’s famous tamales. Take you out dancing.”

Rey laughs against his neck; her breath tickles. “That sounds fun,” she says happily.

“You could still do that,” Finn suggests. “I’ve never been dancing.”

“No one’s ever brought me flowers,” Rey agrees. “I think I’d like it. But only potted ones. They’re sad when they’re dead.”

Poe can’t help craning his head down to kiss her hair, because here’s this terrifyingly dangerous woman in his arms and she’s worried about flowers dying. Kriffing hell, she’s wonderful. “I’ll take you dancing, then,” he tells Finn. “You’ll pick it up fast. And I’ll bring you flowers. And -” He breaks off, wondering what else he can offer these shining, glorious people.

“And you’ll come _back_ ,” Rey says into his shoulder. “You’ll come back to us.”

“Always,” Poe promises, and means it.

*

He makes them tamales three days later, which is the soonest he can get the ingredients together and sweet-talk the kitchen droids into letting him use a corner of the kitchens. Watching them eat is - a revelation. Rey actually manages to take her time, to savor each bite; Finn eats very slowly, eyes half-closed, like he wants to remember this moment for the rest of his life. Poe almost forgets to eat his share, he’s so caught up in watching them. And when they kiss him afterwards, he can taste the spices on their tongues.

He brings them flowers and sweets from every mission he can, visits bazaars on half a hundred worlds to find them new and fascinating flavors, flowers in every color there is. Rey soon has an entire garden of potted plants, a tiny ocean of greenery that makes her smile wide and bright as the sun every time she looks at it. Finn has a wardrobe, clothing in every shade Poe thought might look good on him, warm sweaters and sturdy shoes and, always, Poe’s old jacket, patched and almost good as new.

He takes them dancing, with BB-8 playing DJ, finds an empty training room and teaches them a few basic steps and then sits back and watches in amazement and delight as Finn and Rey make up their own, moving together as perfectly as two halves of one whole, never missing a step. After that first time he goes hunting for holovids on the tango, and the _next_ time he watches them dance, it’s the single loveliest thing he’s ever seen, Finn spinning Rey into an embrace, dipping her - Rey dipping _Finn_ \- both of them laughing with such sheer joy that Poe’s heart hurts to hear it.

They reward him with sweet, chaste kisses and joyful smiles, and sleep in his bunk, curled up around him like a pile of puppies. Poe thinks sometimes, warm and comfortable between them, that he is quite possibly the happiest man in the galaxy.

He’s not the only one courting, either. They bring him trophies from their missions with Skywalker, pretty rocks and useful droid or X-Wing parts, interesting foodstuffs and small, easily-concealed knives. Poe displays the pretty rocks on the shelves of his room, keeps one particularly smooth one in his pocket as a worry stone, wears the knives beneath his flight suit out on missions.

Finn takes over cleaning Poe’s room - their room, now - and keeps it tidier than Poe ever did. Rey works with Poe to fix the ships and droids, her long fingers grease-smudged and clever, and between the two of them, the Resistance’s hardware has never been in better shape.

Finn and Poe both learn to braid Rey’s hair, to tie it up in three tidy knots with a padawan braid dangling behind her ear. Rey and Poe both learn the best way to massage the long scar on Finn’s back when it pains him. Finn and Rey watch eagerly whenever Poe finds the time to cook, and eat whatever he puts in front of them with blissful expressions.

And Poe knows that when he’s gone on his missions - or they’re gone together on one of their own - they court each other, too. Finn wears a necklace, now, that Rey made for him of shining wire and a beautiful stone, and never takes it off. Rey’s little garden gains plants Poe didn’t bring her. They have in-jokes, now, the two of them, and Poe watches them laughing together and smiles to see them so happy. He watches them train together, dancing around each other far faster than Poe could ever hope to move, and is astonished that these two marvelous people who have each other, who make such a perfect pair, have made room in their hearts for him as well.

It’s slow and easy and perfect, and within a few months Poe can’t remember how his life worked without them in it, can’t imagine _not_ having their bodies curled around him in his bed, their smiles greeting him when he gets home from a mission. He’s so gone on them it’s a little scary sometimes, knowing that his heart is in their hands and if someday - all gods forbid - they don’t come back from a mission, he’ll likely follow them within weeks, maybe days.

He is not, honestly, expecting this warm thing between them to turn into sex anytime soon. There’s a war on, and they’re all usually in some stage of exhaustion; and he’s not sure either of his young beloveds trust _anyone_ , even each other, enough for that level of intimacy. Admittedly, Finn has no body modesty whatsoever - doesn’t even quite understand the concept - as Stormtrooper barracks don’t teach such things; but that’s not sexual, just practical. And Rey drapes herself all over both of them like a particularly possessive pittin, but again, that’s not sexual. It’s just that they’re _hers_ , and she’s marking territory. Poe’s just glad she doesn’t hiss at other people when they touch him, like his grandfather’s old pittin used to do.

That’s alright, though - not having sex, that is. Poe got plenty of sex when he was younger, but he has never had _this_ before, this warm intimacy, this perfect synchronicity with even _one_ other person, much less two. He’s never before felt like he’s found the other pieces of his soul, like they all slot together like the pieces of a puzzle, click-click-click into place.

He’s happy - he’s beyond happy, he’s _ecstatic_ \- to come home from his missions and find his room tidy and food waiting for him and his beautiful beloveds curled up in their bed, to give them whatever he has found, flowers or food or just an interesting story, while they pull him into their sleepy pile and snuggle up to him and warm him through, card their fingers through his hair and press sweet kisses to his lips and cheeks and forehead.

It’s the closest thing he can imagine to perfection.


	4. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events thus far from Finn's point of view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With many thanks to MofBaskerville for her kind, insightful, and immensely valuable critique.

When Finn wakes up, Rey is holding his hand. It’s so surprising that he actually wonders if he’s still dreaming, lost in the pain and his own mind, but no, that’s really Rey, dozing with her head on the bed beside his hip, her fingers curled around his tightly. Finn doesn’t want to wake her; she looks _exhausted_ , like she’s been running for days, and it’s no hardship to lie here on a comfortable bed and wait for her to wake in her own time.

Since he’s on a bed, and not decommissioned or reconditioned or _dead_ , they must have won - Rey must have defeated Kylo Ren. Finn smiles up at the ceiling. Damn, he would have liked to see that. She must have been _magnificent_. And then they must somehow have gotten off of Starkiller and back to the Resistance, because if they were captives of the First Order, Finn would not be lying in a comfortable bed with Rey sleeping in a really uncomfortable-looking curled position beside him. So they’re alive, and Starkiller is defeated, and they’re safe - or as safe as anyone is during a war.

Finn’s memory chooses that moment to replay Han Solo’s death, and Finn winces. The movement jars Rey a little, and she sits up, instantly wide awake, staring around until she sees his open eyes, and then she smiles like a sunrise. “Finn,” she says joyfully. “You’re _awake_!”

“How long have I been out?” Finn asks. His voice is hoarse - his mouth is dry. Rey snatches a cup of water from a nearby table and holds it to his lips, and Finn drinks it dry. Rey seems to be a little pink around the cheeks when she puts the glass back down, but Finn figures that’s probably just excitement.

“You’ve been unconscious most of a month,” Rey tells him. “But the _good_ news is your back’s all healed up and you were asleep for all the really nasty bits.” She offers a hand to help Finn sit up, and Finn takes it, shuffles around so he’s sitting on the side of the bed with Rey nestled up against his side. “I’ve _missed_ you,” she says quietly. “You were there but you weren’t _there_ , you know?”

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Finn says apologetically.

“Not your fault,” Rey says firmly. “That was all Kylo Ren’s fault, and I paid him back for it, too.”

“Did you kill him?” Finn asks curiously. Rey sighs.

“No, not quite,” she says. “I was _going_ to and then there was an earthquake and I couldn’t get to him. Master Luke says he thinks it’s just as well, that killing him might have sent me to the Dark Side, but I dunno. Killing a nasty piece of work like that can’t really be evil.”

Finn laughs. “Don’t look at me,” he says, “they don’t teach ethics to Stormtroopers. I’m pretty sure killing _unarmed people_ is wrong - I mean, that’s why I ran away in the first place - but I really can’t see how killing Kylo Ren would have been a bad thing.”

“See!” says Rey triumphantly. “That’s what I keep telling Master Luke. He just sighs and says I’m a young barbarian and I’ll understand eventually. But letting people live when they try and kill you is a good way to end up dead. I learned _that_ years ago.”

Finn grins. “Wish I could’ve seen you fight,” he says. “Wish I could’ve _helped_.”

“You kept him off me till I got my feet back under me,” Rey says. “And really it wasn’t all me fighting. It was the Force, too.”

Finn blinks at her in confusion, and she shrugs. “It’s like this,” she says. “You - you close your eyes,” Finn does, “and you _listen_. And there’s a - a sound - like music very far away. D’you hear it?”

Finn listens. He hears the beeping of the machines that must be monitoring him, his own breathing and Rey’s, the soft sighing of the air circulation system. But - behind that, under that, _past_ that - there’s a sound. It gets louder as he listens, stronger, and it’s like music, just as Rey said. And then it’s not just a sound, it’s a feeling like - like standing in the middle of a river, and Finn braces himself so he won’t be swept away, hears Rey whisper, “Open up to it - don’t be afraid,” and he will follow Rey anywhere she leads. He opens - something, not his eyes or his mouth but _something_ \- and whatever the river of music is, it rushes into him, fills him brimful, as full as he can bear but no further, with warmth and strength and joy, and he _knows_.

“Oh,” Finn says quietly, opening his eyes. He can feel Rey next to him, not just the warmth of her skin or the clasp of her hand on his but her _self_ , glowing with power. Farther away, there are others who glow, both old and weary, one like a stone wall crumbling and the other like durasteel, bent by time but still unbroken. “ _Oh_.”

“I thought you’d have it too,” Rey says, sounding satisfied. “Isn’t it - isn’t it just -” she trails off, as if unable to find the words, and Finn nods.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “It’s - yeah.”

“So you’ll train with me?” Rey asks hopefully. “I’d like that.”

“Of course,” Finn says. They sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes, leaning against each other and basking in the music-river of the Force, and then Finn says, “Who else...didn’t make it back from Starkiller?”

Rey winces. “There’s a long list,” she says grimly. “The Resistance lost two-thirds of its fighter pilots. But your friend Poe, _he_ made it back alright. He’s the one who blew Starkiller up.” She chuckles. “He’s been kind of looking after me. When we got back, I was _frantic_ \- you looked like you were _dying_ , it was _awful_ \- and he brought me dinner and kept me company until we knew you’d be alright.”

“He’s really something, yeah?” Finn agrees. “He’s the one who talked the General into letting me come after you.”

“Mmm,” Rey says thoughtfully. “I like him a lot. He’s funny, and he knows how to make food - real food, not from powders! - and he left me BB-8 to keep me company. But he’s out on a long mission right now.”

“How long?” Finn asks.

“Another couple of weeks,” Rey says mournfully. “He said he’d come back, though. He _promised_.”

“Poe keeps his promises,” Finn says, nodding. “He’ll be alright.”

*

He spends the rest of the day undergoing half a dozen tests to make sure he’s fully healed, and doesn’t see Rey again until dinnertime, when BB-8 herds him down to the mess hall, where Rey has a tray and a seat waiting for him. “Where are we?” he asks her as he sits down. “It doesn’t look quite like D’Qar.”

“It’s called Hideaway,” Rey says. “D’Qar was compromised, so we - well, the Resistance, I was on Ahch-To - moved.” She grimaces. “D’Qar got raided by Stormtroopers a week later, so…”

“Good thing we _did_ move,” Finn agrees, trying a bite of something. Rey watches him eagerly. “This is _good_ ,” Finn says, marveling at the bread roll. “How do they get the meat inside like that?”

Rey giggles. “I asked Poe the same thing,” she admits. “He said they bake it into the dough. Something about flour and yeast and water and putting the whole thing in an oven - I didn’t really understand, and he didn’t have time to show me. But he said he would when we _do_ have time.”

“Think he’d show me too?” Finn asks. “I’d like to learn.”

“Of course,” Rey says, shrugging. “Why not?”

“Well,” Finn says, and tries to choose his next words carefully, “if he’s your boyfriend…”

“Don’t be silly,” Rey says, frowning at him. “I don’t have a boyfriend, and if I did it’d be both of you. And of course _that_ wouldn’t work till you woke up.”

Finn blinks. “Can you _do_ that?” he asks. “Have two boyfriends?”

“Why not?” Rey says practically. “I mean, you like me _and_ Poe, right? And he really likes _you_ and I _think_ he likes me. So why not?”

Finn turns the idea around in his head a few times, then nods. “Sounds good to me,” he says, and stretches his hand across the table, palm up. Rey puts her hand in his and smiles.

*

Finn ends up sleeping in Poe’s bunk that night, because Hideaway is small and no one’s quite sure if he should be rooming with the pilots or the infantry or Rey. He wakes up midway through the night when Rey comes slipping in through the door, shushing BB-8, and curls up against his back. “I woke up and thought I’d dreamed you being okay,” she explains quietly. “Can I -”

“Stay,” Finn says. “I’m not used to sleeping without twenty other people in the room anyway.” Rey wraps herself around him more firmly and falls asleep, and Finn laces his fingers with her, clasping her hand gently to his chest, and follows her into dreams.

_They are standing amid the stars, with the river-music of the Force all around them. Finn holds out his hands to Rey, and she takes them gladly, and they whirl together in the star-filled void, weightless and joyful. The dance goes on and on and on, and they never get tired or dizzy._

In the morning, Rey says sleepily, “Did you - dream of stars?”

“And the Force,” Finn says, smiling up at her where she’s leaning on his chest. “What d’you think that means?”

“...We should ask Master Luke,” Rey says reluctantly.

*

Master Luke looks them both over and sighs and says, “It’s a Force-bond. Quite a strong one, too; much stronger than the one _I_ have with you, padawan.”

“Is it a bad thing?” Finn asks carefully. Master Luke shakes his head.

“Not bad,” he says, “but dangerous. Jedi are warned to abstain from attachments, lest we be tempted to the Dark Side, and this is a very strong attachment.”

“Master Luke,” Rey says slowly, “Finn’s not Dark, and he’s not going to _go_ Dark. Can’t you feel it? He _glows_ in the Force. And with him bonded to me - he’ll keep _me_ from going Dark, I think. So maybe the Jedi were wrong.”

Master Luke winces, but Finn can’t see how this bond between them that shines in the Force, that resonates to the river-music of the universe, could be anything but good. So far as Finn is concerned, if Rey thinks it’s alright, it’s alright with Finn.

*

They sleep in Poe’s bed again that night, curled around each other. Finn isn’t used to sleeping _with_ someone - the Stormtrooper bunks were tiny, barely big enough for one person, and cuddling like this would have gotten both of the offenders reconditioned at _best_ , probably decommissioned - but he likes it. Rey is a warm armful, wiry and lean and with surprisingly bony elbows, but she curves against Finn’s body like they were made to fit together.

Finn’s not exactly _hoping_ that they’ll end up in that music-filled starry void again, because that sort of joy is rare, in his experience, but he falls asleep a little more...eagerly than he might otherwise.

_The Force is a river around them, an entire universe of music, every star chiming its note and Rey and Finn just two more chords in the flood. They whirl around each other in glee, dancing and leaping, and then Finn sees the faint thread which runs from each of their hearts off into the river-music, twining together as it goes. He points - talking, in this place which is not a place, would be futile - and Rey clasps his hand tightly and nods, and they follow the thread of a Force-bond down through the music-river - or sideways, or up; directions make little sense in this star-filled void - until at last they find a - a bubble, a solid place in the flow, and step into/onto/within it, and are -_

Finn glances around. He’s in the engine room of a small ship, a very _battered_ small ship, and Rey is clinging to his hand. In front of them, Poe is hunkered down next to the broken engine, his pants torn all to hell and one leg inexpertly bandaged. Finn can see the red lines of infection snaking out from beneath the bandage. “Poe,” he says, as Rey’s breath hisses between her teeth. “Poe, where are you?”

Poe is supposed to be on a milk-run reconnaissance. He’s not supposed to be _injured_. His ship is not supposed to be so broken Finn’s not sure it can be fixed at all.

“In the engine room, what’s it look like, buddy?” Poe asks, and oh - Poe doesn’t think they’re real. Finn glances over at Rey, who is white-faced with worry. That’s a _bad_ sign. If he doesn’t think they’re real, he thinks he’s hallucinating, and if he’s hallucinating, he’s worse off than Finn thought.

“No, I meant what _planet_?” Finn asks carefully. He doesn’t dare try to touch Poe - who knows what might happen - but he’s clinging to Rey’s hand so hard it must hurt. She’s clinging back just as hard, though, and shaking a little.

“Dunno, buddy,” Poe says, shrugging. “Fell outta hyperspace. I _think_ I’m near Teyr somewhere. Maybe. But hey, I’ll get this fixed soon, be back with you in two shakes, buddy. Don’t you fret.”

“Poe, you’re _swaying_ ,” Rey says hoarsely, and yanks them both out of the dream. Finn wakes with a strangled yell at the uncomfortable sensation, and finds that Rey is already sitting on the edge of the bunk, yanking on her boots.

“He’s hurt,” she says. Finn rolls out of bed and dresses with Stormtrooper efficiency, follows her out through the halls to the General’s quarters. It takes far too long for them to explain everything to Leia, but once she understands she nods and gives them permission to take the _Falcon_ and go find her missing pilot. Rey rounds up Chewbacca and a medical droid while Finn borrows star maps of every system within three jumps of Teyr from the other pilots - who give him worried looks but no objections - and they are off the ground within hours. Every passing second seems too long, but there’s no point in them all dying before they can reach Poe, after all.

Rey and Finn fall asleep again in a corner of the cabin while Chewbacca flies the ship, the two of them already reaching for that bubble of solidity in the river-music of the Force.

Poe is lurching down the short corridor of his battered ship, one hand braced on the wall, limping badly. Rey grips Finn’s hand so hard her knuckles turn white. Finn hisses in dismay. Poe looks even worse than he did this morning.

“Don’t worry, buddies,” he says when he glances up and sees them. “I got this.”

“Poe, you really don’t,” Rey tells him, and Finn nods agreement. This is as far from under control as Finn has ever seen a situation.

“Well,” Poe says, sighing, “okay, I kind of don’t. But. I’ll make it home to you, I promise. I said I would, and I will.” He goes stumbling past them.

Finn waves a hand, which goes through the wall of the corridor. “Damn it,” he says quietly as Poe collapses onto his bunk. “We can’t do _anything_.”

Rey turns and buries her head in the crook of Finn’s neck, and he flails for a moment, then wraps his free arm around her and pats her back gingerly. “I _hate_ being helpless,” she mutters. “I hate it _so much_.”

“We’ll get here,” Finn tells her, willing himself to believe it. “We’ll make it in time. And - kriff it - we can stand watch tonight, at least.”

They do, waiting beside Poe’s restlessly sleeping form until he wakes. He stares at them a little wildly. “Hey,” he says, and seems to lose his train of thought. “Hey.” He pauses, gropes for words. “If I don’t make it back, sweethearts, don’t you cry too much. I knew this was gonna kill me one of these days. I’m sorry to break my promise, though.”

“Kriffing hell, Poe, don’t talk like that,” Finn says desperately. “You’ll be alright.” He hopes that he’s not lying. Poe looks like hell.

Poe laughs a little. “Yeah, buddy,” he says. “I’ll do my best. But you got each other, you’ll be alright.” He sags back against his pillows, eyes closing, and Rey whines through her teeth in desperation and despair. “Woulda liked to spend my life with you,” he mutters, flailing a hand weakly at both of them. “Woulda loved you so. ‘M so damn sorry.” His breathing evens into sleep again.

“Force _damn it_ ,” Rey snaps. “You’re not allowed to die, Poe Dameron!”

“He won’t,” Finn says, and drags them back into the waking world.

*

“If we can follow the thread while we’re _awake_ ,” he says as soon as Rey’s eyes snap open, “we can find him.”

“You’re a kriffing _genius_ ,” Rey says, and hugs Finn hard, and they scramble to the cockpit together. Navigating by Force-sense and guesswork and stubbornness is...not actually fun or easy, but they force the _Falcon_ through microjump after microjump until finally they come out of hyperspace to see, on the moon below them, a crumpled pile of metal which can only be Poe’s transport. Rey lands the _Falcon_ as gracefully as a feather, and the medical droid beats all of them across the short stretch of land to Poe’s ship, darting in faster than Finn thought the clumsy-looking thing could move.

Poe is still on his bunk, lost in the grips of the fever, and Rey and Finn pin him down so the medical droid can do its work, murmur soft words to keep him calm, and then when he’s as patched up as the droid can get him, Finn carries Poe across to the _Falcon_ and installs him in a bunk, and Chewbacca takes the ship up into hyperspace as fast as he can push the buttons.

Doctor Kalonia is waiting when they get back, and Finn pulls Rey away from the medbay so the doctor can work - and so they don’t have to see what needs to be done. Finn and Rey retreat to the dining hall and Finn finds half a dozen kinds of fruit he’s never seen before and coaxes Rey to try them. It works - it distracts her - and watching her smile or frown or pucker her lips in astonished dismay distracts _Finn_ \- and so when BB-8 comes rolling in with its lighter held high, beeping triumphantly, they are both surprised to find that nearly three hours have passed.

“I’m keeping him under for a few days,” Doctor Kalonia tells them when they reach the medbay. “He’s exhausted and I want to make sure that fever wears off, and he’s a _horrible_ patient - he’ll make himself ill again if I let him out too early. Three days, give or take.”

“Three days,” Rey says, like a promise, and nods.

*

They spend those three days training with Master Luke, and the nights sleeping in each other’s arms and whirling through the river-music of the Force. Dancing all night doesn’t seem to actually cost them any _sleep_ ; actually, Finn’s not sure he’s ever felt better rested than he does after spending hours with Rey in that glorious starry void. Finn’s glad they’ve got a definite timeline. He doesn’t like waiting helplessly for Poe to wake up, and he can’t imagine how miserable it was for Rey and Poe while _he_ was unconscious.

“Really miserable,” Rey tells him when he asks. “I could tell you were healing, but you were so _still_. I kept wanting to shake you awake, and I knew I couldn’t.”

They’re curled up together on Poe’s bed, Rey dozing against Finn’s chest while Finn reads up on the rules and regulations of the Resistance, when Poe rather unexpectedly comes back to his rooms. Finn suspects, later, that Doctor Kalonia arranged this specifically to keep the three of them from having an energetic and disruptive reunion in the medbay, which is fair, because when Finn greets Poe and wakes Rey up, Rey goes shooting out of Finn’s arms and pins Poe to the wall with the force of her embrace. Finn is too amused to get up and rescue the older man.

“Thanks for coming for me,” Poe says, and Rey grumbles an imprecation into his shirt. Finn quite agrees. Of _course_ they came for Poe. “Gotta ask, though,” Poe adds, “how’d you find me?”

Finn’s honestly not surprised that Poe thought they were hallucinations. He reacted much too calmly to their presence for any other explanation to be valid. But when Poe realizes they were _real_ , he goes quite pale. “...I was very sick,” he says. “I hope I didn’t say anything to offend you.”

Finn rolls off the bed and goes over to take them both in his arms. “You didn’t offend us,” he reassures Poe. “Worried the hell out of us, yes, but you didn’t offend us.”

Poe actually relaxes, and then Rey says, “You said you wanted to spend your life with us. Was that true?”

Finn watches worriedly as Poe goes paler still. Do they need to take him back to the medbay? But Poe takes a deep breath and some color comes back into his cheeks and he says, sounding like he thinks they’ll hate him for it, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.”

Finn says, carefully and gently, “You said you would have loved us.” He smiles a little when Poe looks at him, trying to put everything he feels in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Poe tells them quietly. “I would. I _do_.”

“Good,” says Rey, and Finn leans forward and kisses Poe. It’s a very nice kiss, as it happens. Finn thinks he’d rather like to do it again.

*

Courting, the way Poe describes it, sounds like fun - like something that has nothing to do with war or training. Finn likes it. He likes eating the interesting new foods Poe makes for them, and he likes dancing with Rey (almost like dancing in the river-music of the Force, but not quite) and with Poe, and he likes bringing both of them things, pretty rocks and knives and trinkets that make him think of them. He likes the necklace Rey makes him, shining braided wire and a deep purple stone that nestles in the hollow of his throat, and he likes braiding Rey’s hair in the morning, feeling it slip through his fingers, impossibly soft, and he likes sleeping in a heap with Rey and Poe both. Poe doesn’t come dancing in the river-music void with them - he’s about as Force-sensitive as the stone on Finn’s necklace - but he’s warm and his breathing is a soothing, steady sound through the night, and he smells good. He tastes good, too, when they kiss. So does Rey. Finn _really_ likes kissing.

But it’s obvious, to Finn and to Rey both, that Poe knows a lot more about all of this - courting and kissing and everything that comes with it - than they do.

“If he has to teach us,” Rey says one evening - Poe is out on a mission, and Finn and Rey are curled up in his bunk, a pillow behind Rey doing a very bad job of substituting for Poe’s warmth - “then he’ll never think of us as anything but -” she trails off, gesturing wordlessly.

“Innocents,” says Finn, grimacing. Which they aren’t. Finn has killed, and more than once; and he suspects that Rey’s kill count might actually be higher than his. Jakku is not a kind place to grow up.

“Exactly!” says Rey. “So we need to know what we’re doing, because in this I think we need to be his equals, not his students. So we should learn, together. I’ve done some reading, and I think it sounds fun, most of it. I think I’d like it with _you_. And with Poe, but - not yet.”

“Alright,” Finn says, and kisses her carefully. “So we’ll learn together.”

They hunt down holobooks and vids, and peruse them together while Poe is out on missions. Some things look fun and some things look uncomfortable and some things just plain look silly. But the ones that look fun -

“Can we try that?” Rey asks, pointing to a diagram. Finn considers it.

“I don’t see why not,” he says, and leans over to kiss her. They _like_ kissing. When they kiss each other, it’s not as chaste and careful as the kisses they share with Poe - they want to keep their secret a _secret_ , after all - but hot and wet and open-mouthed and _hungry_. Finn would honestly be perfectly happy to just kiss Rey forever. But Rey has a _goal_ today, and after a few minutes she squirms away and shucks out of her clothes. Finn can’t help admiring her: she’s still lean, for all Poe’s efforts to feed her, and there are scars here and there on her pale skin, but she’s a work of art nonetheless. And he gets to _touch_.

So he does. She bites her lip - she doesn’t like making noise, most of the time - but he watches her carefully, and she nods when he finds a good place, shakes her head when something doesn’t please her. Her breasts are sensitive, and Finn spends a long time ghosting his fingers over the curves of them, tweaking her nipples very gently to make her muffle squeaks into her hand, and then, feeling greatly daring, he leans down and _licks_ at one of them, and Rey makes a sound he’s never heard before and grabs his head with both hands to hold him in place.

Well. Alright then.

Finn applies himself thoughtfully to his task - well, as thoughtfully as he can, given that he wants to rut against the bed. But yes, there are certain spots that are more tender than others, places where licking earns him soft moans, other places which are not so sensitive, and Finn memorizes them all. Rey tastes good, like salt and desire, and the soft skin of her breasts is so sweet under his lips, and the _sounds_ she makes - he could stay here forever.

After a while - a long while, he thinks, but he’s not sure - she nudges him further down, and Finn laughs against her skin and kisses his way down her torso, detouring a little to kiss every inch of the long scar on her left side that she won’t tell him how she got, until he reaches the apex of her thighs and stops to look up at her face.

She is flushed and panting, wide-eyed with desire, more beautiful than anything else in the universe. Finn smiles. “Yeah?” he asks, quietly.

“Kriff yeah,” Rey says, and spreads her legs, loops her calves over his shoulders, and Finn bends his head and breathes in the scent of her desire, looks carefully at this most intimate part of his dear one, and then, a little tentatively, essays a lick.

She tastes good, but even if she had tasted worse than the protein bars the First Order uses as daily rations, Finn would keep licking, because her head thumps back against the pillow and she _shivers_ beneath his hands splayed on her hips and a thin, desperate keening whine rises from her throat. “Just there,” she says, and then, “Left - your left, kriff - up - oh _kriff do that again_.”

Finn swirls his tongue just the way she wants it, and when she comes - because the shuddering, gasping convulsion of pleasure can be nothing else - the Force-bond between them opens and _rings_ with it. Finn shakes with the echo of her ecstasy.

“ _Oh_ ,” says Rey, after a while. “Do that again.”

Finn does.

*

The next time they have a little time to themselves - Poe is off on a two-day mission, BB-8 accompanying him - Rey says, “My turn.”

“I thought last time was your turn,” Finn says, running a hand carefully through her hair where it falls loose and beautiful around her shoulders.

“My turn to _explore_ , I mean,” Rey says, and pushes him back against the pillows. Finn smiles and lets her arrange him to her satisfaction, lets her strip his clothing from him and leave him bare to her wondering eyes. She reaches out with gentle fingers to trace the pale scars his years of training left him, then bends to kiss his knee, of all things. Finn relaxes back against the pillows and lets her do as she pleases, gives her the sounds she wrings from his throat freely, and learns with her what feels good: her hands on his skin, stroking long and slow and soothing; her weight atop him, not heavy enough to pin him but warm like the best blanket in the galaxy; her mouth on his chest and his throat and - oh Force please yes - his cock. She licks at him curiously, much the way he licked at her, and Finn shivers beneath her and does not buck up against her careful mouth, waits with shaking patience while she learns the shape of him, while she tastes him and decides she likes the taste, while she wraps one strong warm hand around him and coaxes his orgasm from him in a rush of wonder that echoes down their bond, rebounding and rebounding until they are both moaning with it, clinging to each other in the aftermath of pleasure.

*

“So,” Rey says, a few weeks later, during which time they have both gotten very good at pleasing each other with hands and mouths, “want to try - um - that one?” She points at the manual. Finn examines the diagram, gulps, and nods.

A few minutes later he’s flat on his back, hands firm and gentle on Rey’s hips, giving her something to brace against as she lowers herself very slowly and carefully onto his cock. Finn’s face is wet with Rey’s pleasure - he licked her open, licked her wet and shaking through her first orgasm, and he suspects that was the right choice, because she opens around his cock slow and easy and painless, her end of their Force-bond radiating nothing but a deep and satisfied pleasure.

“Oh,” she says softly as she settles against him, hip to hip, Finn buried in her so deep he thinks he might pass out from the pleasure. “Oh, I _like_ this.” She leans forward to brace her hands on his chest, darts down to press a swift, heated kiss to his lips. “Go ahead, move,” she says, and Finn’s hips rise without his conscious decision. She rides the motion easily, but her head goes back and she moans with pleasure, and then she takes one hand off his chest and reaches down between them to work her own clit while Finn moves steady and inexorable as the ocean, thrusting up and up and up against into perfect tight heat, and Rey comes moaning on her own fingers and Finn’s cock.

Finn follows her over the peak, the combination of Force-bond and physical pleasure far too potent to deny.

“Wow,” Rey says, some time later, sprawled out on Finn’s chest and panting happily. “We’re doing that again. A _lot_.”

“Anytime,” Finn says, grinning against her hair. “I mean, if you want to do that _specifically_ , I’ll need a few minutes to recover. But otherwise, anytime.”

“Huh,” Rey says, and giggles against Finn’s neck, which tickles. “Well, good thing I’ve got two boyfriends, then.”

“D’you want to tell Poe about this?” Finn checks.

“Not yet,” Rey says thoughtfully. “Soon, but not yet. I’m greedy. I want you all to myself a little longer. And I want to be _really_ good at this when we tell Poe, so he can’t think we’re innocents.”

“Fair enough,” Finn says, and rolls them both over. “I guess I should get some more practice, then,” he says, grinning down at her, and slides down the bed to bury his face between her legs and lick the taste of both of them from her skin. Rey bucks up against his mouth and grabs a pillow to muffle her moans, and Finn radiates smugness down their Force-bond and decides to see how many more times he can make Rey come before she makes him stop.

The answer, it turns out, is four. Finn’s maybe a little bit smug about that.

*

Sex with Rey is pretty much the second-, maybe third-best thing ever to happen to Finn - the first and second being ‘getting out of the First Order’ and ‘dancing with Rey in the river-music of the Force’ - but once they’ve really started to get good at it, they both start feeling a little bit like something’s missing. It’s Finn who says it, one lazy morning as they loll about in bed, draped over each other and stinking of sex.

“We should tell Poe,” he says. “I want to see his face when he sees you naked. He always stares at _me_ when I’m changing.”

“Mmm,” Rey says thoughtfully, kissing Finn’s shoulder, since that’s the nearest part of him. “I want to see you kiss him - kiss him like you do me.” She shrugs. “Yeah, we should ask him if he wants to have sex with us. After he gets back from this mission.”

“After he’s gotten some _sleep_ after this mission,” Finn amends. “We don’t want a repeat of the broccoli incident.”

“...Fair,” Rey says, giggling. “Alright. If we’re going to do this, we should have a _plan_.”

Finn rolls over so she’s sprawled over his chest, laces his hands behind his head and smiles up at her. “Sounds good,” he agrees. “I’ve got some ideas. What did _you_ have in mind?”


	5. Chapter 5

So it is fair to say that Poe is a little _startled_ the morning he wakes up in the middle of his bunk, his beloveds as usual on either side of him, and finds them kissing ravenously over his chest. It’s a remarkably _appealing_ sight to wake up to, he must admit. But he’s slightly confused by how - how _expert_ they both seem to be. This is not a tentative first kiss which turned into hunger and need. This has been _practiced_.

...Oh dear gods, have they been practicing? Poe’s mind provides him with some helpful mental images of what that might look like, and he bites his lip to keep from moaning. Finn’s dark head down between Rey’s pale thighs, or Rey’s long clever fingers playing over Finn’s lovely cock, or the two of them moving together as gracefully as they do when they’re dancing - what, Poe’s not a saint, he’s _looked_ when Finn stripped down, even if he didn’t stare - kriffing hell, they must be beautiful together. They’re beautiful together _now_ , kissing fervently with their hands braced on Poe’s chest for balance.

And then they turn and look at him with near-identical expressions of mischievous lust, and Poe forgets how to breathe for a moment.

“Would you like to have sex with us?” Finn asks, smiling down at Poe.

Poe’s mouth goes dry, but he manages to croak, “Yes, please.” Rey laughs, low and smug.

“We’ve been doing research,” she says, looking ever so pleased with herself.

“And we’ve been practicing,” Finn adds. “I think we’re really quite good at it now.”

Two stunningly beautiful people in perfect physical condition who can, when they concentrate, read each other’s minds. Yeah, Poe will _bet_ they’re good at sex.

“We wanted to impress you,” Rey tells him, and Poe blinks in surprise.

“Darling,” he says, “you don’t have to _try_.” He’s been impressed since he _met_ them, since a beautiful Stormtrooper saved his life, since a desert-raised orphan looked _through_ him with those bright and burning eyes.

“Oh,” says Rey, and kisses him. It is, Poe thinks vaguely, one of the better kisses he has ever been privileged to receive. It’s hot and wet and there are _teeth_ and tongue and - oh, is that him moaning? Yes, yes it is.

Rey sits back on her heels after a while and says, “You taste good. Finn, kiss him.”

Finn does. Poe decides that as long as his lovers _want_ him to just lie back and be kissed senseless, he might as well cooperate, right? No point ruining their no-doubt careful plans. Finn kisses as well as Rey does - a little sweeter, not so toothy, but gods, Poe could lie here kissing the two of them for the next small eternity and not get tired of it.

When Finn pulls away, Poe whimpers a little, curls his fingers in the sheets so he doesn’t just grab one of them and yank them down, roll them over and kiss them as hard and passionately as he can. That can be for _next_ time, he tells himself sternly. This time, they’re running the show.

“Poe,” Rey says, uncharacteristically hesitant, “can we -?”

“Anything,” Poe says instantly, blinks his eyes open and smiles up at both of them. Rey’s gotten naked while Finn was kissing Poe, and there’s a _lot_ of really beautiful skin on display. Poe wants to cup her lovely breasts in his hands, to run his fingers over the soft skin of her stomach, to kiss the pale curves of her inner thighs. And apparently that desire shows in his expression, because Rey’s eyes go wide and dark, and her breath hisses between her teeth, and she leans down and pins his shoulders to the bed and kisses him so fiercely he thinks she might actually draw blood. Poe’s pretty sure the desperate keening filling the room is coming from his throat.

“So,” he says once she pulls away, “how d’you want me?”

“Every way possible,” Rey says, and Poe clenches his hands in the sheets so hard his knuckles hurt, because _dear gods yes_. “But today -”

She pauses, and looks over at Finn, so Poe looks too, and loses all the breath in his lungs, because Finn is lounging back against the wall, stark naked, stroking himself slowly, and Poe is not sure he’s ever seen anything more erotic in his _life_. Finn meets Poe’s eyes and licks his lips and Poe wants _desperately_ to roll over and kiss Finn, pry those lovely lips open with his tongue and replace that stroking hand with one of his own and see how fast he can coax Finn to a screaming orgasm. For starters.

“Today?” Finn says, smiling at them both. Rey laughs.

“Today we have _plans_ ,” she says, and Finn rolls over to kiss Poe, long and sweet, while Rey busies herself tugging Poe’s sleep pants off - he doesn’t wear a shirt to bed, because with three people cuddled up together it gets a little warm. Poe lifts his hips to help, sighs contentment into Finn’s mouth as Rey runs her hands up his bare legs.

“Let us learn you,” Rey says quietly as Finn moves to kiss down Poe’s jaw, seemingly fascinated by his morning stubble. “Please.”

“Of course,” Poe says, a little shakily because Finn has found the spot behind his ear that makes him shiver with pleasure, and Rey hums happily and slides up the bed to mirror Finn’s movements on Poe’s other side.

Poe bites his lip to hold in the moans as they work their way down his throat, find every sensitive spot on his chest, spend what feels like kriffing _hours_ teasing his nipples, and then Finn stretches up to kiss him and says, “Let us hear.” So Poe does. He moans for them as they find all the sensitive places along his torso; he whimpers when Rey discovers that he’s ticklish behind his knees, then giggles helplessly when she takes ruthless advantage of that; he whines when Finn pins his hands down and kisses the insides of his wrists, soft and sweet and just a hint of teeth.

And he starts begging when Rey says, “Here, let me show you,” and tugs Finn down next to her, and proceeds to give a short but detailed lesson on oral sex, with frequent pauses for Finn to demonstrate what he’s learned. Which means that there are _two_ incredibly hot, talented mouths working over Poe’s cock, and really, Poe doesn’t think he should be held responsible for the sounds he makes.

“Dear _Force_ ,” Finn says, staring up at him. “Rey, are you -?”

“I’m ready,” Rey says, and Poe shivers beneath them as they rearrange themselves, Rey up on her knees straddling his hips and Finn behind her, steady as stone, his hands firm on her hips. “You ready, Poe?”

“So ready,” Poe says, staring up at them in wonder. Rey chuckles softly and sinks down onto him, hot and tight and wet and _kriffing hell perfect_ , leans back against Finn and rides Poe slow and sweet and easy, like she’s got all the time in the world. Finn’s hands move from her hips to skim across her stomach, cup her breasts, and Poe watches hungrily as Finn shows him _exactly_ what Rey likes, how she prefers to be touched, the perfect way to make her moan and sigh and loll her head back in pleasure. It’s the most beautiful thing Poe’s ever seen, for about ten minutes, and then Finn slides one clever hand down between Rey’s legs and Rey arches against his fingers and cries out as she comes, and that, right there, is so beautiful Poe wants to _frame_ it, wants to see it every moment for the rest of his life.

“Kriffing hell,” Poe says weakly, and Finn laughs against Rey’s hair, helps her slump down on the bed beside Poe and then sprawls out atop Poe, kisses him hard, and Poe ruts up against him helplessly, their cocks sliding against each other slick with Rey’s pleasure, Rey’s hand in his hair and Finn’s fingers tangled with his, pinning his hands to the pillows.

“Come for us, dearest,” Rey says softly, and Poe can’t help but obey, is gratified to hear Finn’s low cry of pleasure as he also reaches his peak, and lies there dazedly in the aftermath, slightly too warm and very sticky and happier than he thinks he’s ever been in his life.

“Next time,” he says at last, “I get to touch you, right?”

“Of course,” Rey says, and Finn nods, kissing Poe’s cheek.

“Mmkay then,” Poe says, kisses the nearest part of Finn - an earlobe, which makes Finn chuckle, the laughter shaking all of them - and sags back against the pillows, closing his eyes. “That’s alright.” He thinks a moment. “And I want to see the two of you together. And -”

Rey laughs, scratches her fingers through his hair to make him purr. “Everything,” she promises. “We’ll do everything with you.”

“That’ll take a while,” Poe observes, smiling.

“The rest of our lives,” Finn agrees softly.

Poe’s smile gets wider. “That sounds almost long enough,” he says contentedly, and isn’t surprised at _all_ when that earns him a long, messy, absolutely perfect three-way kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Do please drop by imaginarygolux.tumblr.com and say hi!
> 
> GUYS. I can defend myself if need be. Please do stop. I love you all, but honestly comments saying how much you like the fic - if you like the fic, and clearly there are reasons that some people do not, which is THEIR RIGHT - are far better for my mental health than people yelling at each other in the comments threads. Please, drop it. I appreciate the help, but drop it. Thank you.


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